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Wellington, New Zealand-based musician Pete O’Connell has previously used his Rhysonic Wheel, a self-made instrument that combines power tools with a self-spinning wheel, to create steady, melodic strumming on his acoustic guitar. Recently he has built another iteration of the device that spins several wheels at once, producing harmony between a drum, djembe, and any other percussive or stringed instrument he chooses to place in the path of the machine’s spinning wheels.

The invention was inspired by the rhythm that would rattle from the hockey cards attached to his childhood bicycle. Thinking back on this memory gave him the initial idea to incorporate a wheel into his music, which he has been experimenting with ever since. You can see more of O’Connell’s performances with early versions of the Rhysonic Wheel on his Youtube,Vimeo, and Facebook. (via Colossal Submissions)

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A new video released by the ambitious Wintergatan band of folktronica musicians/inventors (previously) shows the latest developments in their ongoing Marble Machine project. The video above documents the successful completion of the Marble Conveyor Belt, which uses ratchets and pistons to move dozens of marbles around and through the Marble Machine. Martin Molin, who is a member of the band and the inventor of the Marble Machine, demonstrates how the movement of marbles is in time to—and can even create—beats and rhythms in Wintergatan’s music. We’ll leave the technical details to the professionals, but imagine a pinball machine meets an oversized music box.

In-depth notations on the band’s YouTube channel explain the specifications of the conveyor belt’s functionality. Wintergatan’s loyal following on YouTube and Patreon, which follows these intricacies at every turn, has helped support the complex and long-running invention process. Once the full Marble Machine X is complete, Wintergatan will embark on a world tour performing music with the finished musical machine.

You can find free scores as well as records and merch in the Wintergatan online store. Stay up to date with the Marble Machine’s progress on Instagram.

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We’ve all tinkered around on a keyboard that, when a button is pushed or settings tweaked, gives us a chance to play the sound of a flute or drum. When the Ukrainian band Brunettes Shoot Blondes purchased a vintage, albeit broken, grand piano they decided to recreate this concept in analog form. The group secured twenty instruments to the inside of the piano and its sides so they could effectively play each as they pressed certain keys. The creation was developed as a way to perform their new song “Houston” live, rather than having an entire band as back-up like they might in the recording studio. Keys connect to drums, tambourines, cymbals, and castanets while additional mechanical devices play stringed instruments like the cello and two violins. You can view more of the band’s performances on Instagram and Youtube. (via Laughing Squid)

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In a new music video for the musician and DJ Max Cooper (previously), Páraic Mc Gloughlin (previously) turns a single viewpoint over an anonymous highway into a nearly five-minute-long psychedelic collage. The Irish film director was tasked with “visualizing the Platonic realm of form underlying reality,” writes Cooper in a statement about the video. To do so Mc Gloughlin situated himself on a bridge in Sligo, Ireland for 19 hours, to create a single, day-long shot that he then manipulated. The final result is a dizzying mashup of visual effects. Grids, spirals, and pixels composed of the original video footage flash and swirl across the screen, showing the viewer snapshots of the sky, highway, and grassy hills.

“Aesthetically I love the mix of abstraction and realism and this was a great place for me to explore this,” Mc Gloughlin shares. “Using a fundamental image (a time lapse) to mask and cut into, I tried to show the variable possibilities within a limited time span, maintaining the integrity of each individual photograph while dissecting and rearranging the overall image.” The visual content was matched with each layer of audio created by Cooper to form the song, which stacks up to over one hundred layers. You can watch more videos from Mc Gloughlin on Vimeo and Instagram, and discover Cooper’s music on his website and SoundCloud. (via Vimeo Staff Picks)

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Manami Ito is not only a talented musician, but also a Paralympian swimmer and the first nurse in Japan to have a prosthetic arm. She represented Japan at the 2008 and 2012 Paralympics, receiving 4th and 8th place in 100m breaststroke, and currently travels the country with her violin performances. The above video was taken on September 2, 2018, when she performed Thread by Miyuki Nakajima at the Takarazuka City General Welfare Center in Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. (via The Kid Should See This and Laughing Squid)

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Japanese musicians Ei Wada, Haruka Yoshida, and Masaru Yoshida create reverberating drum beats on the outstretched tape of cracked open reel-to-reel tape recorders from the 1970s and 1980s. The group, appropriately named Open Reel Ensemble, produces an intriguing timbre that more closely resembles a synthesizer than an analog drum. The group has created the soundtrack for Japanese designer ISSEY MIYAKE‘s last four seasons. You can listen to more compositions by the trio, including this song that mixes their unique drumming technique with a keyboard, on Youtube.

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Despite the incredibly vast array of mood and subject matter of films throughout the ages, dancing is a universal dramatic device used to create moments of levity, romance, and drama. Casper Langbak of CLS videos created a delightful super-edit of nearly 300 dance scenes in movies ranging from La La Land to Schindler’s List. You can see a full list of the clips here. Langbak has a large catalogue of cinematic collections and tributes, like Meet the Hero, on YouTube.